Chapter 5 #2
She looks like she always has in my memory, only smaller.
Plain features, soft skin that never quite fit the expensive creams they pushed on her, hair pinned back without fuss.
We are the same kind of ordinary, she and I, the sort that disappears in a room built for spectacle.
My father was the one with looks that drew eyes.
The easy smile, the kind of confidence that made people forget what it cost. He enjoyed that attention. He took more than his share of it.
I sit across from her and try to read what she will not say.
“What’s wrong with Julianne?” I ask. “What do you know?”
Her fingers tighten on the cup. “I haven’t heard from her.”
“I can help.” I pull my press badge from my wallet and lay it on the table, the laminate catching the light. “I’m a journalist now.”
She leans forward and studies the card, tracing my name with her gaze. Awe softens her face for a second, pride slipping through whatever script she rehearsed on her way here.
“What happened to her?” I press, lowering my voice. “Is this connected to her friend?”
Her eyes snap up to mine. “What are you talking about?”
“Someone close to her went missing last week, or so I’ve heard,” I say calmly. I’m not about to mention Bella and get her in trouble.
My mother shakes her head, once. “I have heard nothing.”
“You would tell me if you had.”
She looks away, toward the window, where the lights of the street smear across the glass. “There are things I cannot say.”
“You don’t have to say them. Just tell me if she’s safe.”
A beat passes, too long. She doesn’t answer.
Her fingers tighten around her cup. “You should not have come back, Adi.”
The bell over the door rings. Two men speak to the hostess in low voices. My mother’s chin dips, her shoulders drawing in as if she could make herself smaller. I see the black sedan idling at the curb and the wheelchair turned a fraction toward the window.
She doesn’t look at me when she whispers, “I’m sorry.”
The first man reaches for my arm and I pull back hard enough that the chair legs scrape the tile.
The second takes my other elbow, polite smile fixed in place, and I twist out of his grip.
My mother stands fast, her cup tipping, tea sliding across the saucer.
I plant my feet and make them work for it.
One of them mutters that there’s no need for a scene. I give him one anyway.
“Let go,” I say, louder than I meant to. Heads turn. The hostess hesitates with the door in her hand.
“Adriana,” my mother says softly. “Please.”
They don’t yell. They don’t even look angry. They just angle their bodies so I’m boxed in, and with a practiced shove forward, I’m out the door and into the cold. The sedan waits at the curb.
“Get in the car,” one of the men says. My mother pleads silently.
I stop fighting. It’s not giving in. It’s biding my time.
The ride is silent except for the hum of the engine and the sound of my mother’s hands wringing in her lap. She doesn’t look at me once. By the time the car turns through the iron gates, I already know exactly where we’re going.
The house hasn’t changed much. The hedges are still clipped within an inch of their lives, the lights in the entry glowing like nothing bad has ever happened here. Inside, the air smells of lemon polish and old wood. Staff pass without looking at me, quick and silent.
Misha is on the landing when we walk in, one hand on the railing. He’s taller, leaner, but with the same wary look in his eyes.
“Adi,” he says.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, though I doubt I sound convincing.
“He’s in the study,” Misha says, and his mouth tightens.
The men walk me down the hall but stop outside the door, letting me go in alone. My mother lingers in the hallway with Misha, her hands balled at her sides.
My father sits behind the desk, a cane propped against it. The lamplight catches in his hair, the same easy, handsome features that have always drawn people in. He doesn’t stand.
“What did you do to her?” I ask.
He doesn’t flinch. “Your sister made her own choices.”
“What choices?”
His gaze is steady, his tone even. “For what she did, she has to pay with death.”
My stomach drops. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your sister is supposed to be married in two days. She ran off.”
“Married to who?”
“You don’t need the name,” he says. “You need to understand the agreement.”
“I’m not going to stand here and act like this is normal. Where is she?”
“Gone,” he says, leaning back. “Hiding. Thinking she can walk away without consequence.”
“You sent men after her.”
“I sent men to bring back what belongs to this family.”
“And if she doesn’t come back?”
His mouth curves in something that isn’t quite a smile. “Then the family pays. You know how it works.”
Anger burns in my throat. “And your solution is to kill her?”
“She chose her cost,” he says simply. “Now she has to pay it.”
I take a slow breath, forcing my voice to stay even. “Then find her. I’ll talk to her.”
“You won’t need to,” he says. “The wedding will happen.”
“How?”
His eyes hold mine. “I promised a Petrova bride. There’s more than one of you.”
I take a step back from the desk and my shoulders hit a wall that breathes. I turn and find a man built like a truck filling the doorway, broad chest, thick forearms, eyes that don’t bother pretending this is my choice. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t need to. He is the end of the room.
“No way,” I say. “I’m not getting married. I’m not playing your twisted games.”
My father does not raise his voice. “You have no choice.”
“I always have a choice.”
“If you do not get married, we all die.”
The words land so quietly it takes a heartbeat for the meaning to catch up. I feel my jaw set before I can stop it.
“Who are these people?” I ask.
He leans back in the chair, fingers resting on the cane as if this is a lesson I should have learned years ago.
“Dangerous men,” he says simply.
“More dangerous than you?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “More powerful, connected.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters,” he says. “They want what was promised. If Julianne refuses, the promise moves to you. If you refuse too, they will collect in other ways. Money first, then blood. You know how this ends.”
I look at the man behind me and test the space to his right. He shifts half a step and the opening disappears. I can taste the polish in the air, lemon and old paper, the same smell from every time this house decided my life for me.
“You think fear will make me walk down an aisle,” I say.
“I think duty will,” he says. “Fear only reminds you what happens when you forget it.”
I stare at him until the room stops tilting. “Then tell me who he is.”
“That can wait,” he says. “What cannot wait is your answer.”
I breathe once, steady and slow, and keep my eyes on his. “You already know it.”
He studies me for a long moment like he’s searching for the girl who used to obey. “Bring her to the guest wing,” he says finally to the man at my back. “She will be fitted in the morning.”
The door opens behind the enforcer, and the hall air slides in, cooler than the study. I don’t move until he tips his chin toward the corridor, patient as stone.
They put me in my old room and turn the key. I hear the scrape of metal and the soft click that used to mean bedtime when I was small and stubborn, only now it means something else entirely. The hallway quiets. Footsteps fade. The house settles around me like a lid.
Everything looks familiar and wrong at the same time.
The curtains are the same pale fabric my mother chose when I was eleven, the wardrobe still smells faintly of starch, the desk sits beneath the window with a neat stack of stationery no one ever used.
Someone has polished the wooden bed so thoroughly the light pools on it, and for a moment I see myself as a child, shoes kicked under the frame, a book open on my chest because I never could sleep when the house was full of voices.
I sit on the edge of the mattress and the first tear slides down my face before I know it’s coming.
I press my palms to my eyes and breathe, trying to hold myself together long enough to think, but the thought that keeps breaking through is Julianne, the sound of her voice over a bad connection, the way it caught and fell away.
I should have called sooner. I should have been faster.
I should have known that coming back would spring every trap at once.
I check my pockets out of habit. They took my phone somewhere between the tea shop and the gates. Of course they did.
I circle the room, try the handle, test the hinge with my shoulder, lift the window to see if they remembered how it sticks in humid weather.
The sash barely moves. The paint along the frame has been touched up and the seam is sealed tight.
Outside, the garden looks as carefully arranged as the hall downstairs, hedges trimmed, gravel raked, no space for a misstep.
I sit again and let myself cry properly, quiet and ugly, the kind that has no audience and no relief.
I cry for the girl who was told to be grateful and learned to move without being seen, for my mother who could not meet my eyes today, for my brother standing on the stairs looking older than he should, and most of all for Julianne who might be out there alone with people who think a wedding is a weapon.
When it passes, I wipe my face on my sleeve and count my breaths until my ribs loosen.
I look around the room with a different eye.
There’s a hairpin on the vanity, thin and strong.
There’s a narrow gap between the wardrobe and the wall where the baseboard is not flush.
The sheets are crisp and long enough to braid if I have to.
The desk chair is old and the back spindle is loose if I work it.
I catalogue these things the way I would in any unfamiliar place, not because I think one will save me on its own, but because knowing them makes me feel less trapped.
I speak her name into the room. It sounds small and wrong in the space where I used to whisper it through the crack under the door to make her laugh.
I picture her at the top of the stairs as a child, toes over the edge because she always leaned forward into everything, and then I try to see her now, older, frightened, her face stubborn in a way that looks like mine when I catch it in the mirror.
If they mean to use her as a lesson, they will find out I learned more than they intended.
I stand and press my ear to the door. Nothing.
I kneel and look at the gap beneath it, watch for shadows that do not appear.
The house breathes around me, the old pipes ticking, the clock in the hall counting time I can’t waste.
I straighten the bedspread so the room looks untouched and then I pocket the hairpin and work the loose spindle free from the chair back, easing it out millimeter by millimeter so the wood won’t complain.
I’m not walking down anyone’s aisle. I’m not letting my sister disappear into the quiet they prefer. They think this room has made me small again. They think locks and history and a dress that doesn’t fit can keep me still.
They have forgotten who taught me how to leave.
“I’m not getting married to anyone.”
Present day…
I feel the weight leave my head as the veil lifts, lace whispering over my hair, and then I’m looking at him.
He’s devastatingly handsome in a way that feels unfair, dark hair smoothed back from a strong forehead, eyes a pale winter blue that hold without blinking, a mouth cut in a line that looks like it has never begged for anything.
The suit fits him like it was made around his body, the white collar open just enough for me to see the line of his throat, and something in me stirs with recognition before my mind catches up to my eyes.
I know him.
The man from the private hallway at Serrano’s club. The one whose eyes slid past me like I was no one. He doesn’t seem to recognize me now. Was he the one who rescued Julie? I’ve no time to ponder over that now.
He lifts the veil slowly, like he’s unwrapping something precious, and the faint brush of his fingers against my cheek sends a shiver all the way down my spine.
Then he’s looking at me—really looking—and the heat in his gaze makes my knees feel weak.
“Adriana,” he murmurs, like he’s tasting my name.
Before I can breathe, he leans in and kisses me.
It’s not a polite, ceremonial kiss. It’s deep from the first touch, his mouth hot and sure against mine, his tongue sliding between my lips to claim me. The church, the guests, the priest—all of it vanishes under the rush of heat flooding through me.
His scent is warm and masculine, the faintest trace of smoke and spice. My body betrays me instantly, my nipples tightening beneath the satin of my dress, and a slick ache blooms between my thighs. God, I’m wet already.
He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, one hand cupping the back of my neck to hold me exactly where he wants me. His thumb brushes the sensitive spot under my ear, and the low groan he lets out vibrates right through me.
When he finally pulls back, just enough to look into my eyes, there’s a ghost of a smirk on his lips—like he knows exactly what he’s done to me. My chest rises and falls too quickly, my heart slamming against my ribs.
And I know, in that moment, that nothing about this marriage is going to be safe.